Chicago
by wrldpossibility
Summary: Quite a few prompts being answered in this one (and please know I read them all and am working on others). Sara and Michael finally visit the rose garden, we see more of Sucre and Lincoln, and I put my own spin on those ice cream photos that have been circulating (though you'll see I changed things up…I just wasn't feeling it in canon, in the park). NSFW


Sara had forgotten how much she loved Illinois at the cusp of summer. In late May, the ground had thawed and the elms and boxelders had budded, but the weather had not yet turned humid, the sky dotted with cotton-white clouds. In the Tancredi Memorial Rose Garden, everything was in bloom: rows of Queen Elizabeth and Damask and Chinensis, whole beds of tea roses and peace roses and yellow roses. Michael lifted Henry from her arms, and she walked down the narrow paths slowly with Mike by her side, breathing in the perfume wafting from the petals mixed with the sharp smell of freshly turned soil and cut grass.

"Did my grandparents live _there_?" Mike asked, peering at the capitol building looming behind them with its rotunda and white marble.

"No," she told him. "That's where your grandfather worked. He lived over there," she pointed to the governor's mansion on the corner adjacent to the expanse of lawn next to the garden. Neither building held much sentiment for her. She had never resided here herself; her father had become governor the year she'd begun medical school. He'd moved into the mansion with only a housekeeping staff, Bruce enough of a constant presence he might as well have moved in. She'd made her obligatory appearances at teas and fundraising dinners, begging off her father's personal invites to join him for lunch or a weekend (med school was killing her, she told him, she'd get behind) until the requests slowed to a trickle.

The house she considered her childhood home stood in a gentrified neighborhood of Chicago, where they'd lived while her mother had still been alive. Even then, she'd known their elegant brick bungalow had been temporary, her father's eye always set on the next political hurdle. This mansion in Springfield, too, had been a stepping stone for Frank Tancredi; Sara had always known the unspoken goal had been the White House. What could her father have been, had he not died that day for the secret that had sent Lincoln to Death Row? He wouldn't have ended up in Washington that year: he'd already resigned himself to taking himself off the Reynolds ticket before he flew home from D.C. But four years later? Could he have ridden out that storm? She'd never know.

 _You were right, Sara_ , he'd told her in that final phone message so long ago. _You were right about everything._ Whether his political ambitions could have survived the Steadman scandal or not, she liked to think their relationship might have. That maybe, had he lived, her father would have come to understand why she'd left that infirmary door open. Why she'd followed Michael Scofield across state lines and over international borders, why she'd been willing to do time for him and escape capture for him and raise his son for him. She'd like to think maybe he would have been there for her. Would have wanted to know Mike, and now Henry.

"I wish he could have met you," she told Mike now, taking his hand. "Your grandmother, too."

'Dylan has _four_ grandparents," Mike noted. "I have none. Well, not really." Jacob's mother had been much like a grandparent to him, for a period. But it hadn't quite been the same, a fact even Mike had recognized.

Sara took a long breath, and released it through her nose. She'd come here with grand intentions of keeping the malaise to a minimum, an impossible expectation, with memory and regret and wishful thinking growing as thick as the rose bushes they walked between. "We can't control things like that, Mike," she said, "as much as we'd like to."

He nodded. Goodness knew, he had learned this the hard way at a young age, witnessing his mother grieve his father. "And we have lots of friends," he added, perhaps hoping to cheer her up.

She thought about their plans for the rest of their visit, and smiled down at him. "We do."

They sat down on a bench in the center of the garden, waiting for Michael and Henry to catch up. At nine months old, Henry squirmed to be released to crawl to his next destination as often as he was content to be in his parents' arms. When they approached, she noted that Henry had consented to being carried, face tucked against Michael's shoulder, two fingers stuck in his mouth, eyes at half-mast. He looked ready for a nap. Sara smiled at him, convinced she was getting a furtive glimpse of a baby Michael. Henry looked more like his father every day.

"I'm almost glad we're here now, instead of at the ribbon-cutting last fall," Sara told him. A shadow crossed Michael's face; Sara had still been on strict bedrest when the ceremony had taken place.

He rallied quickly. "It's certainly more peaceful now," he agreed.

"It's wonderful," she told him, moving from the bench to rise on her toes and kiss him over the crown of Henry's head.

"Did we really buy this?" Mike asked, the subtle difference between donor and owner evidently confusing him.

"We paid for it," Michael explained, "so it could be here for anyone who wants to come."

Mike digested this, then his stream of thought took a detour. "Is it weird, not having a mom and dad?" he asked them both.

Sara sucked in a quick breath, and Michael squeezed her hand. She looked at her son, his expression as unconcerned as if he'd asked about the weather. He could be heart-wrenchingly intuitive to the needs of the people he loved, but when a question arose in his brain, he asked it without censorship or mercy. She knew it fell to her to teach him empathy.

"We're pretty used to it now," Sara answered him carefully, "but it still makes us feel sad, Mike."

He looked surprised, only now realizing his question might have been insensitive. "Oh."

"Never mind," Michael told him, taking his hand. "Are you ready to head to Uncle Lincoln's? It's a bit of a drive." Mike agreed with a hesitant smile, and when he'd run ahead on the path back to the street, Michael said to Sara, "Remember being a kid, thinking adults were these giant, looming figures in your life who needed no one and could take care of everything?"

She conceded this with a contemplative laugh. "Yeah, I suppose I do."

"Those were good times," Michael smiled.

* * *

Lincoln didn't have room for all four of them in his small rental on the edge of Southside, especially since Sheba seemed to have moved in. Michael made a mental note to ask his brother about this development the next time they were alone. For this trip, he'd made reservations at the same uptown hotel they'd visited their first trip back to Chicago almost two years ago. He was looking forward to it: last time, Mike hadn't had the opportunity to try out the rooftop pool, and room service was always a great way to start the day. He didn't even mind that the suite he'd requested had been unavailable; enforced family time in the tight quarters of a single room didn't faze Michael in the least.

At Lincoln's, they BBQed in the backyard and caught up with one another, watching Mike try out the soccer goal Linc had bought and set up just for his visits, Sheba insisting on holding Henry most of the evening. LJ stopped by after work, a gesture that touched Michael; he knew his nephew put in long days, the drive to his father's house was out of his way, and he had a girlfriend waiting for him.

"Are you kidding?" LJ protested, when Michael thanked him for coming. "Gotta make time to see family."

Michael couldn't argue with this. It filled him with true joy, embracing LJ, hearing the passion in his voice when he talked about his work, seeing his smile. He had to leave all too soon, a burger in one hand for the road, a heartfelt 'thank you again, Uncle Mike, it really helps' on his lips.

Lincoln eyed Michael over the rim of his glass after his son had left. "You sending that kid money or something?"

"You know, just a bit," Michael hedged. "Here and there. It's hard, when you're starting out, and I know he hopes to buy his apartment. Maybe buy a ring for that girl of his." He looked at his brother pointedly. "At least I'm telling him it's from me. No 'insurance' or 'inheritance' bullshit."

"Alright, settle down." Lincoln sank down onto the back stoop next to him.

"Remember when he was just another punk kid selling pot for the neighborhood thug?" Michael said. "He _made_ it, Linc. Against crazy odds. Let me honor that."

Lincoln smiled. "He really has made something of himself, hasn't he?"

"You bet he has." He set a hand on Lincoln's shoulder. "He's a role model for Mike and Henry, and I want him to know I'm proud of him."

If he didn't know better, Michael night have thought his brother teared up at this. He got up with a gruff nod, mumbling something about bringing out cupcakes for the kids. Michael decided not to mention the fact that processed sugar had never touched Henry's lips, and rarely crossed Mike's either. He'd let Sara play bad cop.

They left a few hours later, wrestling two sugar-high children into the rental car and arriving at the hotel well after bedtime. Sara drew a bath for Mike, figuring he'd more easily settle into a sleepy state-of-mind after soaking in the oversized jetted tub with the fancy lavender bath salts he'd found on the countertop. Henry had passed out on Michael's shoulder during check-in; now, he eased him into the port-a-crib next to the beds, clicking off the overhead light. Putting him in his pajamas before leaving Lincoln's house had been a good call.

After Sara emerged from the bathroom to tuck a sleepy Mike into the second bed, Michael moved to stand behind her at the window, fingers kneading the muscles stretched taut over her shoulder blades. It reminded him of their first night in Chicago during their previous visit, watching the snow fall between the street lights to melt in the river. He'd purposely asked for a room overlooking the same view.

"Long night," she said, referring to the effort to get across town and the kids in bed. "I'm sorry we had to leave Lincoln's pretty early."

He hadn't minded, even when Henry had wailed at the sight of his car seat, even when cross-town traffic had slowed them to a crawl. "I love our life," he whispered to her simply. He watched her smile in the reflection from the glass window.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer to him, moving the curtain of her hair to one side so he could kiss the back of her neck. The vibration of her soft hum of contentment tickled his lips. "And I love you," he added, his mouth at her ear.

She turned in his arms, body flush to his, able to ask with just her eyes and the upturned tilt of her chin for his mouth on hers. He cupped her face and kissed her deeply and silently in the dim light from the window, until she moaned again low in her throat, pressing her body even more tightly to his, and he pulled back to chance a glance toward their sleeping children, just a few short feet away.

"The bathroom is quite roomy," she whispered, capturing his bottom lip between her teeth. "And the door locks." He chuckled, kissing her once more before tugging her by the hand down the short hallway.

Behind the closed bathroom door, Michael gave the walk-in shower a quick assessment, then turned on the spray, letting the water warm up while he freed Sara of her shirt, then pulled his own over his head to fall on the floor. He unbuttoned her jeans next, slipping his hands under the waist to slide them off along with her underwear, enjoying the feel of the goosebumps that rose on the skin of her bare rear and thighs as his touch. "Cold?"

"I don't think I will be for long," she answered, eying the steam that rose from the oversized shower stall. She stepped backward into it, and once he'd liberated himself from his pants, he joined her against the back tiled wall, the feel of her wet, slick skin making him harder than he already was. He reached for the soap, artisan-something-or-other-with-sea-salt-and-sage, lathered his hands, and let them travel her body while she closed her eyes against the fine spray of the shower. God, she was beautiful. He wished she'd stop worrying about scars and baby weight and whatever else, because wow. He caressed her stomach, shoulders, hips, ribs, eyeing the heavy swell of her breasts with appreciation before running his hands gently over them. She still fed Henry; he knew they were sensitive to the touch.

Sara let her own hands roam his torso, his biceps, his hips and upper thighs, before dipping to curl her fingers around the length of his erection. He pressed himself hotly into her hands, his mouth greedy on hers again, kissing her until she gasped and sputtered under the shower head. "Sorry," he laughed, pushing her wet hair back, shifting her against the wall away from the direct stream of the spray.

"I'm not into waterboarding, so cut that out," she smiled, then sobered at his expression. "Sorry, probably not funny."

It wasn't, but with Sara's hands back on him, the jut of her nipples slick against his chest, her mouth hot on his, he could push the thought aside. He ran his hands down her body to dip between her legs, tasting her sound of pleasure in the tangling of their tongues. She was warm from the water, wet with arousal, her flesh all silk and heat to his touch, and he couldn't stand it any longer. He grasped her backside, a cheek in each palm, and lifted her up against the shower tiles, pinning her with his body as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He allowed himself the indulgence of eying her body again with abject appreciation, then thrust into her with a hard kiss. She gripped his shoulders tightly, riding him as urgently as he moved in her, and he lifted one hand to cradle her head, sliding it between her skull and the hard tile. They increased their rhythm, moving fast, almost desperately, taking care to keep nearly silent, and when she came, Sara bit his soapy-slick shoulder to keep from crying out. Barely a second later, he pulled out of her swiftly with a tight grimace, the warmth of his release spilling onto her belly to be washed away by the spray.

He leaned heavily into her, panting, holding her against the slick tile. "That wasn't necessary," she told him, when she'd caught her breath.

Micheal kept his tone neutral. This was a tired argument. "I disagree." He kissed her neck and then the rosy blush that had blossomed on her chest. He would not risk pregnancy. Ever again. Until she stopped breastfeeding and could take something stronger, or agreed to a vasectomy (another tired argument), this, or condoms, was how it would be.

She didn't bother to protest, curling her hand over his reddened shoulder instead. "Sorry about this," she said, planting a kiss to his flesh.

He smiled at her. "I don't mind a souvenir."

They let the shower spray wash over them for a few minutes before toweling off and sneaking back into the silent room to slip into their bed.

* * *

Michael woke to soft light filtering through the delicate paper shade covering the floor-to-ceiling windows and Henry's soft whimper from his crib. He started to rise, to be halted by Sara's hand on his arm. "He needs me, not you," she whispered. He lay his head back down on his pillow, watching with half-closed eyes as she slid out of bed, wrapped a terry hotel robe around herself, and crossed the room to Henry. She settled onto the love seat by the window to feed him.

Michael smiled at the sight of Henry's small head tucked against Sara's breast, his little bare feet in her lap. In moments like this, it struck him anew that she really was the mother of his children, that somehow, he'd really gotten that lucky, and he was slayed by a stab of gratitude so sharp, he felt physical pain. He closed his eyes, almost relishing it, opening them in time to see Mike stir on the bed next to theirs. He smiled at him, too, and Mike rose and made the leap over, bed-to-bed, crawling up to slide under the covers with him.

"Ah, your feet are freezing," Michael complained with a laugh. "What were you doing over there, putting them in ice?"

Mike giggled, and tucked his toes under the back of Michael's knees to garner another reaction. "No," he said, laughing at Michael's protest. "I dunno why they're cold." He looked at Michael's shoulder. "What did _you_ do?" he asked.

Michael registered Sara's quick look up at them. She glanced back down at Henry just as quickly. "I uh, just a little accident in the shower." Before Mike could ask any follow-up questions, he grabbed the room service menu and asked, 'Who wants pancakes for breakfast?"

"I do," Mike said predictably, taking the menu from Michael's hands. He remembered they offered multiple kinds from their last visit. "Probably Henry wants some too." His brother had recently taken a keen interest in whatever Mike had on his plate.

"Maybe he can try a bite or two," Michael agreed. He looked back over at Sara. "Sweetheart?" he asked. "What would you like?"

Mike read her the menu, and once she'd made her selection, Michael dialed room service and placed their order. He showed Mike how to make coffee with the Keurig system on the counter, and he brought his mother a cup.

"Thanks, baby," she said, sitting a sated Henry up and handing him to Michael before he upset the hot drink. He settled him onto the bed with Mike, where he practiced his best sitting skills while Michael dug into his bag for a fresh diaper. His hands closed over the second to last one.

"We're going to need more Pampers," he said.

"'Kay," Sara answered. "We can stop on our way to Fernando's."

"What are we doing today again?" Mike asked.

"Marika's birthday party," Michael reminded him. Sucre's oldest daughter was having a blow-out tenth, and the timing had worked out perfectly.

Mike looked concerned. "But I won't know any of the other kids she's invited," he said.

"Well, Marika is super friendly," Sara pointed out, "so I'm sure she'll introduce you." Mike had known Marika and her siblings since their Panama reunion days, and they still saw each other each winter break for their holiday party. He had nothing to worry about, but he still looked doubtful, so Sara added, "Plus, you know her sisters, and you can introduce your brother to Kiki." Enrique, Sucre's fourth child and only boy, was almost exactly nine months older than Henry.

"Henry's not old enough to have a friend," Mike said stubbornly. "Maybe we can just go to the museum instead." Michael watched Sara worry her lip. Mike had grown in his ability to try new things in the past few years, but he sometimes still resisted meeting new people. Michael wondered if he had himself to blame for this; having his father unexpectedly appear in his life had certainly been a formative experience.

"We can go to the Field Museum this morning, if you eat breakfast quickly," he agreed, but added firmly, "but then we're going to the party."

* * *

Sucre's house sat at the end of a quiet cul de sac in a modest suburb of Chicago, and today, it was definitely the happening house on the block: music played from outdoor speakers, kids ran between the front and back yards, and Michael had a hard time finding a parking spot amid the line of cars along the curb. "Quite the event," Sara mused.

"You know Sucre," Michael observed. "His eyes are bigger than his stomach, in just about every scenario."

Fernando met them at the door with a boisterous yell of welcome, calling to Maricruz, who greeted them a bit more shyly. They'd never really had a chance to get to know her well. As Sara had predicted, Marika appeared almost instantly, grabbing Mike by the arm to coax him out the back door, saying something about their soccer game having even numbers now. "There you go," Sara said, giving him a little push. "That'll be perfect." Mike gave his mother a last nervous look, but really didn't stand a chance of opposing Marika's wishes.

Inside the house, Sucre made introductions all around, as Sara and Michael met his friends from the old neighborhood, as well as some guys he'd worked with on cargo ships and new friends from the block. Little Kiki ran around like a maniac, a big grin on his face. Michael couldn't resist grinning back. He remembered Sucre's phone call the night of his birth, just a few days after their first annual holiday party. He'd been barely able to contain himself, ecstatic to finally have his boy.

The place teemed with children. A cousin of Maricruz' had a baby around the age of Henry, but she fussed so much in the woman's arms, she asked Maricruz in Spanish for a dose of baby aspirin. "Is she teething?" Maricruz asked, to which her cousin shook her head, unsure.

Michael watched Sara hesitate before offering, "It might be her ear." The little girl tugged on it pitifully. Both women turned in surprise, unaware that she'd been following their conversation in Spanish. "I'd be happy to take a look, if you'd like."

"Ella es doctora," Maricruz supplied, and her cousin gratefully deposited the baby into Sara's arms.

She juggled the baby girl on her hip, retrieving her bag filled with Henry's supplies. "I always have an otoscope with me," she told them in Spanish, "porque mi hijo recibe infecciones de oído todo el tiempo."

Sucre brought Michael a beer, trading him the bottle for Henry, who he entertained with goofy faces. Michael watched Sara work, smiling at the baby, letting her inspect the otoscope from all sides before extracting it from her grasp to insert it in her ear. He loved watching her in doctor-mode; it was much like her style of mothering…gentle and nurturing and patient. Despite the hard line he'd taken, of course he had days he wished she could give him another child one day. A girl, maybe, like this one. But he also knew she absolutely couldn't. She knew it, too. They both just needed time to mourn this fact fully before doing anything permanent about it.

She was right: the baby had an acute ear infection, and Sara wrote her mother a scrip for antibiotics on the spot, to be picked up at the pharmacy just down the street. "Gracias," the woman gushed, embracing Sara and kissing her cheek. "Finalmente dormiremos."

Sara chuckled. "We could certainly all use more sleep, right?"

* * *

Sara nursed a can of sparkling water, watching the sun set over the distant skyline of Chicago. Mike had followed the rest of the kids inside, happy and sweaty after their backyard soccer game, and now, she could hear the strains of Taylor Swift's greatest hits blasting from the karaoke machine Fernando had rented for the big bash. Marika belted out the lyrics to Shake it Off with impressive talent. Sara tried to picture her son singing along with the girls, then decided this was a sight she needed to see for herself.

In the living room, Mike gamely sung the Sebastian part of Kiss the Girl (they'd moved on to Disney classics), making Sara actually pause mid-step in disbelief. It was actually Michael, however, who held her attention longer, sitting on the couch, talking animatedly to Sucre. As she stood there, in the doorway, Fernando said something, and Michael threw back his head and laughed. The sight brought a lump to Sara's throat. It took a lot for him to look that carefree. She felt a wave of generosity toward Sucre, and the friend he'd always been. She also wondered idly what number beer they were on. Then she wondered where Henry was, before spying him pulling himself to stand between Michael's knees, content, as usual, to be anywhere in the vicinity of his dad.

"Hey," she said, coming up behind Michael to plant a kiss to the top of his head. He craned his neck to grin unabashedly at her upside-down. She knew then he was definitely tipsy.

"What's up?" he asked her nonsensically, and she laughed at him.

"Nothing." She gestured to Henry, her eyes dancing. "You got him?"

"Of course." Michael picked him up and grinned at him, too.

She watched Mike move on to belt out a rendition of Hall of Fame with Marika, laughed again, and then took Henry from Michael to feed him. She sat in the company of Maricruz and her friends, who were settled around the kitchen table. It was a good opportunity to practice her Spanish. The little girl she'd examined had already had her first dose of antibiotics, and looked to be in a better mood. She was glad, especially for her tired mother.

"Is Fernando liking his new job?" she asked Maricruz. She knew he was loading freight at the dock near the pier.

Maricruz made a face. "No, but _I_ like it. He's home much more than before." Sara knew she and Michael were lucky; Michael had a skill set appealing enough that any criminal history, pardoned or not, was overlooked. Sara too, for that matter. Maricruz read her mind. "Fernando's record is supposed to be sealed," she said in English, "but sometimes I wonder."

Sara nodded. She'd never fully appreciated, when she worked at Fox River, that the struggle for the men she treated didn't end at their release from prison. In fact, it often only started there. She made a mental note to ask Michael whether there was anything he could hire Sucre to do for him in his engineering business, remotely. No one would be more loyal, more willing to do anything asked of him, more dedicated.

When the party wrapped up, Sara extracted a tired but happy Mike, a crankier Henry fighting sleep in her arms. "Michael?"

She found him helping Sucre carry dirty plates and discarded cups to the kitchen. After they'd cleaned up the worst of the mess, he turned to Fernando and they embraced a final time.

"Let me know how it goes at the conservatory," Michael requested. Marika had an audition coming up at a fancy private arts school. If it went well, it could mean full tuition and voice lessons.

"I will, Papi."

"And you'll come to New York again this winter?"

"All of us, yeah Papi." He was definitely having trouble unwrapping Michael from his shoulders. Sara gently tugged him away with a conspiratorial smile to Fernando.

"I think I should have cut him off a while ago," Fernando admitted to her sheepishly, as she fished the rental keys out of Michael's pocket.

Sara hugged him in turn. "It's alright. Thank you for a great day." She kissed his cheek.

In the car, Michael leaned his head back against the seat and sighed. "Thank you for driving," he told Sara. Then added simply, "Sorry."

It was late, and both kids had fallen asleep in the backseat. She curled a hand over his knee. "I'm happy to see you happy. To see you relax."

"To see me drunk, you mean." He said this lightly, but she felt him look sideways at her as she drove.

She scoffed at this, scrunching her nose in a low laugh. He called this 'drunk'? "You're…lubricated. That's all." And he was rapidly sobering up, his tone turning earnest.

"I never want to do anything to…unsettle you." Unbidden, his late mother's 'advice' rose in her head. _Try to stay out of the bars._

"Do I seem unsettled?" He never drank when they went out together. He never kept alcohol at home. He'd freaked when he'd needed narcotics, never mind when she'd needed them. It was far more than she'd been afforded by Jacob, with his fucking wine collection and nightly Pinot Noir flung in her face. Getting Michael home the _one_ time he'd had one too many at a party? She could handle that.

He shook his head. "You seem fine."

"That's because I am fine, Michael."

He laid his hand over hers on his knee. "Good." He closed his eyes, repeating the word softly to himself. "Good."

* * *

They had one final day in the city, and after a morning swim in the rooftop pool (which Sara deemed too chilly, but Michael braved with Mike, despite the slight hangover he denied), Sara suggested the pier.

Michael laughed at her. "Pretty touristy choice for a Chicago native, don't you think?"

"I never got to go as a kid," she defended. Bruce had taken her once, after her father had bailed on her. She'd been fourteen, and his intentions had been kind, but awkwardly sharing a seat on the Centennial wheel with her dad's work partner had been worse than not going at all.

Michael looked at her tenderly. She knew he could top any story of childhood woe she could dish out, but he never did so. "Navy Pier it is," he decided.

They got there in time to eat corn dogs from a vendor for lunch, then paid a lot more than Sara remembered for tickets to the attractions in Pier Park. "We could have all gone to the Art Institute for this," she complained. The wind on the water had picked up, and Sara dug Mike's sweatshirt out of her bag, handing it to him.

Michael only lifted an eyebrow. "Your idea," he reminded her. "But we're definitely going to Riva for dinner."

She laughed. They both had their hang-ups, she supposed. As determined as she was to slum it with street food and carnival rides, he was equally intent upon taking his family to the most expensive restaurant on the pier. "Okay," she agreed easily. It didn't matter to her where they ate, as long as Michael accepted the fact that Henry would throw aged French brie wedges and tuna tartare on the floor with as much relish as he had his banana slices at lunch.

"Can I get ice cream?" Mike asked, pointing to a vendor selling popsicles and soft-serve.

"You just ate lunch," Sara said, but Michael was already handing him a wad of bills.

"Really?" she chided.

"Bring back change," he called, as Mike ran over to the ice cream cart. He turned to face Sara. "We're on vacation," he reasoned.

They sat down on a nearby bench to wait, and though they chatted and entertained Henry, Michael's eyes never once left Mike, waiting to buy his ice cream. Watching him, watching their son so carefully, Sara had to unexpectedly catch her breath.

"What's wrong?" Michael asked.

"Nothing," she said swiftly, because nothing was. Absolutely nothing. It was just…she'd thought she'd had it in-hand, when it had just been her and Mike. She'd thought she'd done pretty well, most of the time, raising him, loving him. And she had. She'd known, of course, when she'd allowed herself to play the 'if Michael were here' game in her head, that he would have been this type of father, the type he'd proven to be…attentive, loving, one hundred percent _in_. But what she hadn't been able to understand, not until he returned, was what it really felt like to know that another person on this earth loved your child as much as you did. Sought to protect him, shelter him, nurture him, and teach him with equal fervor. It was humbling, and inspiring, and gratifying, and some days, when moments like this one snuck up on her, Sara could barely contain the emotion that rose in her.

"I know he's fine," Michael apologized, noticing Sara's study of his body language, his attention on Mike. "I just feel like I need to make sure."

"I know," she breathed. She watched Michael pull Henry close to his chest, palm cradling his diapered behind, and let another wave of indebtedness - to the universe, to him, to her own perseverance - have its way with her. She ran her hand lightly over the crown of Henry's head, letting it settle on Michael's arm. "I know."

"Let's come here, with the _Taj,_ " Michael said abruptly.

"The boat?" They'd just bought her and named her, but she still sat in a marina.

"Forget the Cape, forget the Caribbean," he said. "Let's take her from Lake Ontario up through Erie, maybe even all the way to Chicago."

She could picture it, sailing here…sailing home. "I like the sound of that," she said, her face tipped to him, her eyes forced to squint into the sun as she felt the brush of his lips on hers. She leaned into Michael's shoulder, content as she watched for Mike to return with his ice cream, waiting for their afternoon to begin.


End file.
